


No Dogs on the Moon

by EldunariWitch



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, No Spoilers, Other, Set between The Crystal Kingdom and The Eleventh Hour, no dogs on the moon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-05 23:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11588043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EldunariWitch/pseuds/EldunariWitch
Summary: I'm not sure how often this work will be updated, so don't get your hopes up, but it's basically just drabble about life on the moonbase (cause I'm a sucker for that kind of thing) with maybe some "Taako Learns To Love" and "Team Sweet Flips Has A Nice Afternoon Because They Deserve It" sprinkled in.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first chapter of a larger work (and my first published work on Ao3,) so please be nice and?? give some constructive criticism if possible. Thanks!

Taako stretched deeply, curling tighter into his nest of blankets and pillows and screwing his eyes shut against the golden sunlight sifting through the blinds. He felt, half-asleep still, that feeling which begins to grow around 11:00, when one knows that they must get up, and still may choose not to, for they have absolutely nothing to do that day. Taako sighed into his mound of pillows, which he kept close to him during the night, and tried to wring a few more minutes of sleep out of the morning. His spelled songbird, which Magnus had carved for him last Candlenights out of rosewood, began to trill sweetly, trying to bring him back to the world of the living. Taako absentmindedly smothered it with a Mage Hand, and turned back to his armful of blankets. _tap tap tap._ Taako ignored the noise, chalking it up to construction happening in the moon's courtyard. _tap tap tap tap._ He opened his eyes slightly, and pushed back the covers. He heard the door to their apartment open, and Magnus' cautious, heavy footsteps welcome another pair of feet. As Taako stirred, he heard Angus' voice cautiously refuse a cup of coffee from Magnus, insisting that "he didn't need the caffeine, sir!" Taako's eyes snapped open. Why was Angus here? It was Saturday. Saturday...training day. Angus! How could he forget? Taako whirled himself out of bed, whipping a thin blanket around himself as a cape and stumbled out into the kitchen, eyes still blurry with sleep. Ango and Magnus turned in shock, two pairs of startled eyes meeting Taako's half-closed golden gaze.

"H-hey, Ango. Sorry I forgot about training, bud. I...I'm here now though! Give me...give me a second to get my bearings." Taako lurched towards the island, winking at Magnus as he accepted a cup of coffee, which he seemed to have embellished with the shaker of edible glitter Taako kept on the counter for easy access. 

"It's okay, sir! I've been talking with Magnus about what we were going to do today! Are we still going to practice Transmutation like you promised?" Angus bobbed his head, looking more like an owl than Taako would care to admit. In fact, Taako cared to admit it so little that he snorted into his drink, spilling coffee down the sides of the mug. 

"Sure, Django. Let me get into something a little more...magic-proof, if you know what I mean," Taako added, and turned back towards his room, flaring his cape as he spun. Angus beamed at Taako's back, and turned back to Magnus as he closed the door. Taako sifted through the pile of clothes on his floor, settling on a pair of reservedly flowy pants and a crop top Merle had scrawled "HORNY" on as a joke, although Taako took to it instantly. Taako paused at a knock on his door. 

"Hey, Taako. I, uh, made you some toast. Wouldn't want you to get hungry out there today. And you know you should have something more than just coffee," Magnus recited patiently, as the elf pulled his hair up into a bun and rolled his eyes, cracking open the door.

"Thanks, Maggie. Ooh, the raspberry jam? Is this the kind from that little farm outside of Goldcliff?" Taako took the toast with a slender hand and shut the door for a moment, then waltzed out, patting Magnus' face as he strode over to the island where Angus was sitting, stirring his iced tea. "C'mon, Ango. Let's get a move on." Angus hopped down from the stool and bopped towards the door, as the elf reached out to to steer him. Taako touched Angus' shoulder for a moment, then appeared to reconsider, dropping his hand beside him as they left the apartment. Magnus looked after them, shaking his head. He stood still for a moment, thinking, but his reflection was interrupted by his stone of Farspeech pinging around his neck. Magnus pushed the button on the side, allowing Carey Fangbattle's excited voice to ring through.

"Magnus! You there? I got it-I got the stuff. Haha, that-that makes it sound like we're pushing drugs or something! Anyway, meet me...behind the courtyard in 10 minutes! No time to waste-" Carey hung up, her voice cracking as her composure dissolved into raucous laughter. Magnus slipped the stone of Farspeech back into his tunic and scrawled a note for Merle explaining that he would be back soon. He moved quietly toward the door, pulling his hood on over his head as he locked the apartment behind him and set off down the hallway towards the stairwell.


	2. Chapter 2

Angus skipped down the glass-walled corridor, his face lit by the clear sunlight spilling through the windows and his footsteps tapping quickly on the walkway, falling in and out of time with Taako's longer strides. Taako absentmindedly swung the Umbrastaff as he followed Angus to the elevators, smiling as he looked into the courtyard on the other side of the glass. His attention was not on Angus, but as the boy excitedly tapped the elevator button with his wand Taako's mind swam and came to focus on what Angus was saying.

"...And Killian said that if I could turn one of her weights into a duck, then she'd take me down to Goldcliff and we could look at the stores -- even the stationery store, which I think she doesn't really like, sir. And -- and I was thinking, 'cause we haven't been doing a lot of Transmutation magic, and I really want to see the stores with Killian, that we could start today?" Taako smiled as the elevator dinged. He had been planning to start on Transmutation today anyway, just little things like turning paperclips into rings, but Angus' excitement raised his spirits.

"Sure, bucko. I think you've earned it." Angus stepped into the elevator and Taako followed. As the doors closed, Taako bent down and snapped his fingers, level with Angus' face. A paper crown appeared in his palm, like the kind he had seen people getting from party poppers at Candlenights, and he offered it to Angus. The boy gasped and gingerly reached out to take it like it was a particularly delicate specimen of insect that he hadn't seen before. Taako straightened and turned back to the doors, a smile playing on his lips. As the gold-wrought elevator doors _dinged,_ Taako glanced back at Angus, who had produced a sketchbook from somewhere and was carefully filing away the paper crown like he was pressing flowers. The elf blinked and shook his head, though he appreciated the little wizard's attention to detail. Together, they walked out into the training level and Taako stood up a little straighter. 

They watched a dwarf spar with a cloaked human, trading blows with bamboo rods and matching each other nearly hit for hit. The human spun back, parrying once, twice, and finally tapping the dwarf on his right side with a solid smack. The dwarf pressed forward, feinting towards the human's legs and then whipping his rod up to his chest, pushing it forward in what would have been a lethal blow, had the training staves been vacuum-tempered steel. Beyond them, a dragonborn woman was laying into a punching bag, chalk rising around her and forming a dusty halo in the morning light. 

Taako and Angus hurried down the length of the training field, walking close to the wall to avoid interrupting the others' sessions and to keep themselves out of the way of any projectiles, dulled or not. Taako pushed open a door at the end of the hallway, revealing a large circular room with a dozen more doors set into the wall. Angus pushed forward and led Taako to the far side of the room, and entered their names into a keypad by the door. Taako followed, enjoying the scattered rays of sun filtering through the glass skylight overhead on his back.

A light blinked as Angus put his palm up to the keypad, and the door slid open with a faint hum and a whoosh of cool air. Taako sat on the floor and began to rifle through his pockets for the paperclips he had meant to bring. With one hand, Taako raised his wand and etched a pale purple circle into the ground, indicating that Angus was to stand inside while he practiced. _Damn, did he leave them in his other pants?_ Taako shook his head and reached up with slender hands to take a bobby pin out of his hair, which he shook gracefully as it fell around his shoulders.

"Here, bucko. You're gonna try to turn this," Taako waved the bobby pin before pressing it into Angus' small hand, "into this." And Taako slipped one of his less valuable rings off and offered it to Angus as well.

"It's important that you understand the essence of the thing you're transmuting something into, but that will only take time, and a good deal of energy, little man. But being such an accomplished wizard such as myself-" This Taako punctuated with a flourish, gold hair flashing, "I can do this." Taako winked and stared briefly at the ring, seeming as if to read it like a spell scroll, then muttered a quick word and a ghostly shadow of the ring appeared at the tip of his wand. Angus reached forward to touch it, and when Taako made no move to stop him, was surprised when his fingers met slippery resistance at its edge, like trying to push two magnets together. 

Taako waved his wand again and the ghostly echo of the ring disappeared, leaving Angus, for once, speechless. He stepped back into the summoning circle, sitting back on his heels and placing the two small objects on the ground in front of him. Angus stared at them pensively, then began to try the spell with a grin and a nod from Taako.

Angus didn't notice, but Taako cast two spells around the faint purple circle: a barrier that would hopefully protect Taako from the worst of the blast, were something to go wrong, and a warding spell around the boy himself, giving him a shimmering suit of spell-armour to protect him from any magical shrapnel. Taako sat back as well, conjuring up a dog-eared paperback and a flowery parasol. For the next few hours, Angus practiced diligently and Taako watched, giving small corrections and pushing a fantasy tupperware full of orange slices closer and closer to the boy wizard until he could no longer deny the snack break. 

By the end of their training session (Taako had booked them for three hours,) Angus could bend the bobby pin and turn it silver, though he struggled to make the ends connect into a ring.

"It's about choosing the easiest path to the thing you're creating. See, it would be much harder to make a hole in the middle of the bobby pin and widen it to make a ring. It's all about how your mind works and where you make those connections." Taako tapped his temple with a slender finger, flashing with jewelry, and then reached out to press his finger to the center of Angus' forehead. "And it's all in here." Angus beamed. 

The afternoon sunlight faded until it was nearly time for Angus to get back to the complex, saying that the Director wanted to see him. Taako stood up, brushed off his pants and snapped his fingers to get rid of the book and parasol, which disappeared with a loud _pop._ He clapped Angus on the back and lifted him into the air, spinning him as Angus held tight to the original ring and misshapen bobby pin. 

"Did I do good, sir? I tried really hard to get it to turn, but I didn't quite get there. Oh, sorry about your bobby pin, sir, I can get you another, maybe I have one-" Angus rifled through his pockets. "Oh, Carey keeps some around for picking locks, I can ask her…"

Taako laughed, ruffling Angus' hair. "Django, you couldn't have done better. And besides, I have a direct link to my room-" Taako drew a grapefruit-sized circle in the air with the tip of the Umbrastaff, which shimmered and turned blue. Taako reached his hand through and appeared to rummage through the contents of an invisible dresser drawer, then withdrew holding a bobby pin. "Don't tell the Director, okay? Our little secret." Taako closed the circle and looked back at Angus. "I think it's time to head back, little man. You want to do the honors?" Angus lead the way, standing back as the doors to the training room slid open and bounded across the perimeter of the sparring hall. Taako shook his head and followed, running his hand through his hair with a smile.


End file.
